Detalles De La Caída Del U-2 (Extracto)

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C HAPTER 5

The U-2 Crisis

The decisions concerning the Soviet downing of the U-2 were dramatic
because they represented the ‹rst time that the U.S. government publicly
admitted to conducting state-sponsored espionage. More importantly, the
U-2 crisis was the ‹rst time that an American president was openly caught
engaging in deception concerningsuch policies. As atavistic as it may seem
in the wake of Vietnam, Watergate, and their resulting pandemic of cynicism, public exposure of such a governmental cover-up genuinely shocked
the American public in 1960.
The Eisenhower administration decisions concerning the Soviet downing of Francis Gary Powers’s ›ight over Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinberg) on
May 1, 1960, were made in a domain oflosses. The administration’s response
included the instigation of the cover-up of American deep-penetration surveillance operations over the Soviet Union in the wake of the public accusation of spying by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, on May 5, 1960.
In the U-2 case, Eisenhower engaged in risk-seeking behavior by lying
to the American public in his of‹cial pronouncements following the Sovietdowning of the U-2.
The U-2 affair appears as a curious case in Eisenhower’s foreign policy
decision making. Why did Eisenhower take an apparently unnecessary risk in
this situation? The administration did not need to speak out as early as it did;
it could have kept quiet until more information was released by the Soviet
Union on the status of the plane and the pilot. Moreover, once theadministration decided to engage in a cover-up of its spying activities, it need not have
issued such a speci‹c, and thus easily refutable, lie; certainly more time and
thought could have been devoted to creating a more credible and consistent
cover story. The incongruities demonstrated by the administration’s erratic
handling of the cover-up make the decisions surrounding the U-2 incident agood case for investigation from the perspective of prospect theory.
Prospect Theory

Eisenhower was an enormously popular president of the United States,
which was the undisputed hegemonic world power in 1960. As such, Eisen107

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Risk-Taking in International Politics

hower had a lot of authority and much freedom to exercise his in›uence onworld opinion. There appears to be no good reason why Eisenhower
should have risked his reputation and his aspirations for world peace by
injudicious behavior such as lying, and, even worse, getting caught doing
so and having to openly admit his mistake.
Prior to the downing of the U-2 in May, Eisenhower was in an enviable situation. Throughout the duration of the U-2 program that began in1956, Eisenhower remained quite risk averse. He understood the risks he
was taking by engaging in the over›ights, but he felt the bene‹ts justi‹ed
the potential risks of discovery and subsequent embarrassment. Eisenhower could have rejected the idea of U-2 over›ights, but only by succumbing to pressure for additional military expenditures in response to
widespread perceptions of massive Sovietmilitary buildups in the wake of
the successful Soviet Sputnik launch. Only by using the information that
could be obtained by U-2 surveillance was Eisenhower able to resist
domestic opposition and adhere to a restrained military budget. Eisenhower made the calculation that the risk of over›ights was justi‹ed
because he believed that the Soviet Union would not be capable of shooting down theaircraft at such high altitudes, and that even when they were
able to do so, no American pilot would be able to survive such an attack,
and so there would be no real evidence to tie America to an intentional
program of aerial surveillance. As Eisenhower recalled:
Of those concerned, I was the only principal who consistently
expressed the concern that if ever one of the planes fell in Soviet...